Tara Gilesbie was the author of My Immortal, although the first 15 chapters were edited by Raven.
Little information was known about Tara aside from what she mentioned in her author's notes and what she posted on other websites (although most of those accounts are not believed to be legitimate).
Background
As stated, Tara Gilesbie wrote My Immortal under the profile name XXXbloodyrists666XXX on fanfiction.net. Like any young writer, she shares many of the same traits of the primary "protagonist" of her story, Ebony (also known as Enoby, Ebomby, Evony, Ibiny, Ebpony, Eboby or Enony), but excluding the vampirism and magical powers. But she still labels and distinguishes herself as a "goff", wrist cutter, Satanist, lover of Hot Topic and various mainstream punk/emo/goth/alternative genre bands, etc.
Tara is supposedly from Dubai, a principality part of the United Arab Emirates (another fact about Tara that raises giant question marks). However when digging further it was discovered that both she and her friend/editor were from Connecticut (listed as being from New Haven Connecticut) through their combined myspace page. Before writing My Immortal, she also shared that the band Good Charlotte made a great impact on her life. Apparently, their song entitled "Hold On" convinced her not to commit suicide after a recent breakup from her boyfriend Crys.
She began writing My Immortal circa 2006. She updated the story on a regular basis. But there were often large gaps between updates as she claimed that the flames of the reviewers caused her to "slit muh rists" and she had to go to the hospital for recovery. There were other moments when she went on extended vacations or was just too "bizzy". She made one last update in mid-2007 before going on a trip to England. She never made any further updates to My Immortal, leading her baffled readers to reach the logical conclusion that she had shed her overexaggerated gothic persona. However, Youtube videos from their channel, uploaded mid 2009, showed that this wasn't the case.
Writing Style
Horrible
Troll Controversy
One of the world's most frequently asked questions and greatest mysteries: Is Tara Gilesbie trolling? This would make the greatest sense for the explanation of My Immortal because as many would say, "My Immortal is just too bad to be true!". However, many other things would have to be taken into account if Tara Gilesbie was in fact just a young, teenage fan-girl who was given access to the internet.
First, to support the troll theory, one must look at Tara's origins. She supposedly lives (or lived) in Dubai. As previously stated, Dubai is an emirate of the United Arab Emirates. Tara also loves Hot Topic. So unless she or her friends or family are fabulously wealthy, it would be nearly impossible for her to take weekly trips to the States or any other country that has a Hot Topic so she could purchase her goods. Additionally, the United Arab Emirates is a predominantly Muslim nation[1][2][3], and is located in the Middle East, where such attitudes towards Satanism, witchcraft, etc. are seen as acts of blasphemy. In addition, discrediting the theory that she actually lives in Dubai even further, she says in an author's note: "...oh yah btw ill be in vacation in transilvania 4 da nex 3 dayz so dnot expect updatz." In another author's note, she describes how "transilvania rox hrad". She says that she got to see the castle where 'Dracula' was filmed. However, 'Dracula', though set in Transylvania and England, was filmed only in England and California, USA. In addition, she once referred to
"omfg im leeving dubya pretty soon kant wait!!!"
However, all of this can be misleading. When Tara says "dubya" she could be referring to two things. The word dubya is in fact a slang term for the Southern American pronunciation of the letter "W". It is also used to flame and mock former United States president, George W. Bush, by pronouncing his middle initial as "dubya". Dubya also refers to an American organization called Dubya USA. It is based in California and it sells various motocross and wheeling goods. What makes all of this mysterious is that Tara may have misspelled Dubai as "dubya" or she could be implying that she is in fact an American. Or, obviously, if she is not a troll, she's living in Connecticut but pretends to live in Dubai.
Furthermore, My Immortal itself, for a lack of a better explanation, does too many things wrong to be written completely seriously. It reads like a list of things a troll writer would do: frequently misspell words in an almost organized manner, text chatting, random/unexplained sex scenes, etc.
On the other hand, to negate the troll theory, one must take into the account of the many things that are a part of My Immortal. The trolling author would have to create the personality of Tara Gilesbie, manage her many accounts (she has had other accounts besides the one that is now deleted from fanfiction.net), and her password(s), and not to mention take the time and dedication to write the forty-four long chapter story itself.
Besides Tara Gilesbie, the troll author would also have to remember the persona of Raven, Tara Gilesbie's friend. As in Tara's case, the troll would have to manage Raven's account(s), password(s), and write her stories, unless there was a second troll involved. Raven's stories would have to coincide with Tara's stories, because they had a falling out. Both writers have chapters in their fan fictions in which they both wrote (or killed) off the avatars in their stories based off the other writer's personalities and vice-versa.
This would be a lot, even for a troll. And if Tara was a troll, she could easily be a very determined and persistent troll to manage those two accounts. Or it could have been a well organized group of people who decided to put My Immortal together. The possibilities are endless.
For unknown reasons, many people have come forward and claimed themselves to have written and/or co-written My Immortal. Some have taken it further by stating that they are or created the persona of Tara Gilesbie and admitted that they were trolling and writing the stories for laughs. Some have even gone to disturbingly great extremes to claim that they not only were Tara, but were continuing the legacy of My Immortal by writing new stories similar to the fashion of the original story by posting such stories on fanfiction.net (although some have subsequently been deleted). Whether these people are lying or telling the truth is another mystery, because anyone could have easily created an account and claimed My Immortal as their own. The fact that some of these people have decided to come forward after all these years between now and 2007 is suspicious enough, but it is all up for debate and up to the reader/reviewer to determine the authenticity of the story in their own mind. This is what makes My Immortal one of the most mysterious pieces of work the internet has ever seen.
Forbiden Fruit: The Tempation of Edward Cullen
It has often been speculated that Tara was also also the author of the notorious badfic Forbiden Fruit: The Tempation of Edward Cullen. This Twilight fanfiction, notable as one of the few works that makes the original series look well written, was published by an author going by the name of BeckyMack666. Her full profile shows a very similar array of tastes to Tara, including a love of MCR. Furthermore, an close analysis of the text reveals a great deal of similarities with My Immortal. Both feature female OC gothic vampires with absurdly long names; compare Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way with Atlantiana Rebekah Loren, who both cry tears of blood and wear gothic clothing described in ridiculous amounts of detail. Unusual euphemisms are used to describe the male genitalia, like "man-carrot" and "throbbing lavender man-fruit thing" which appear very similar to the original "boy's thingy" and the complex conflict between goths and preps is explored. Most damningly, a specific line of Forbidden Fruit seems to be directly referencing Tara's original work, in Chapter 7 a highly out-of-character Bella Swan storms in on the protagonist and Edward Callan screaming "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR DOING YOU EVIL RODENT PEOPLE?!!!!!", followed by "It was Bella Swan!!"
There is therefore a case to be made that both works share the same author, especially since Tara had indeed stated that she had moved onto the Twilight fandom. However it is also highly possible that Forbiden Fruit is the work of a troll heavily inspired by My Immortal, or that it is simply by coincidence that the two works resemble each other so much.
Indeed, both works differ radically in two main aspects in the presentation of the main character, tone and language. Tara's writting essentially depicts Ebony as a self-important character that does whatever she likes, while BeckyMack666 writes Atlantiana as more of a self-justifying character, constantly and consistently trying to make herself the "good guy" (regardless of her actual behaviour). Likewise, Tara depicts sex in an IKEA-like manner, while BeckyMack666 gets a lot more graphic, and lets her character be raped to score pity points, something Tara would never do. Finally, although both stories are extremely random, Forbiden Fruit is more willing to be extravagant, creating such characters as Snooflanti the talking panda, when nothing of the sort is seen in My Immortal.